John Murray (Australian explorer)

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John Murray (c.1775–c.1807) was a seaman and explorer of Australia.

He is believed to be born in Edinburgh and began his naval career as an able seaman in 1789. He served as a midshipman in the Polyphemus from October 1794 to May 1797; as mate in the Apollo from May to December 1797, as second master and pilot of the Blazer from January to July 1798 and as mate of the Porpoise from October 1798 to July 1800. Later that year he passed his lieutenant's examination. In November 1800 he arrived in New South Wales on the ship Porpoise. He accompanied James Grant as mate on the Lady Nelson on the surveys of Jervis Bay, Westernport Bay and the Hunter River in 1801. After his return to Sydney Grant resigned his command and in September Governor King appointed Murray as acting lieutenant and commander of the Lady Nelson.

Under instruction he returned to Bass Strait and the southern Victorian coast. On 14 February 1802 he entered Port Phillip Bay for the first time and anchored off what became the quarantine ground. From his diary:

...Sunday 14 February am Grant’s Point bore E by N distant 10 miles and Cape Shanks NW distant 7 miles; kept running down the land. am. At half-past 10 South Head of the new Harbour or Port N by E 8 miles distant; by noon the island at entrance of harbour bore N half a mile distant. At this time we had a view of this part of the spacious harbour, its entrance is wide enough to work any vessel in, but, in 10 fathoms. Bar stretches itself a good way across, and, with a strong tide out and wind in, the ripple is such as to cause a stranger to suspect rock or shoals ahead. We carried in with us water from 14 to 16 fathoms. Kept standing up the port with all sail set.

Monday, 15 February pm Working up, the port with a very strong ebb against us, we however gained ground. The southern shore of this noble harbour is bold high land in general and not clothed as all the land at Western Port is with thick brush but with stout trees of various kinds and in some places falls nothing short, in beauty and appearance, of Greenwich Park. Away to the eastward at the distance of 20 miles the land is mountainous, in particular there is one very high mountain which in the meantime I named Arthur’s Seat...to the NE by N, about 5 miles from the south shore lies a cluster of small rocky islands and all round them a shoal of sand; plenty of swans and pelicans were found on them when the boat was down, from which I named them Swan Isles. To the NE by E there is an opening, and from our masthead no land could be seen in it. The northern shores are low with a sandy beach all along. At half-past 3 pm we got to anchor in a sandy cove in 7 fathoms water, bottom fine sand – Swan Isles bearing NE by N distance 5 miles, a bold rocky point which I named Point Paterson ESE 1½ miles, a long sandy point named Point Palmer west, 1½ miles, and the nearest point of the shore SW ½ of a mile distant...

He spent more than a month surveying the bay naming such landmarks as Arthur's Seat, Swan Island and Point Patterson. On the 8 March he took possession of Port Phillip, which he named Port King, and which King renamed later.

On July 22, 1802 he set off on Matthew Flinders circumnavigation of Australia commanding the Lady Nelson as a secondary supply ship. Due to old sails and a need for caulking she proved unfit and on 17 October when they were off the Cumberland Islands Flinders ordered Murray to return to Sydney.

In April 1803 Governor King received a dispatch informing him that the Navy Board had refused to give Murray a full commission because he had given false details of previous service in England and had not served the required full six years as had claimed. King had to remove Murray from command of the Lady Nelson in disgrace. Murray returned to England in the Glatton in May 1803 never to return to Australia again. He later appears as the author of several English coastal charts in 1804, 1805 and 1807. His date of death is unknown. A small vessel, The Herring, of four guns, under the command of a Lieutenant John Murray foundered in November 1814 (W. L. Clowes, The Royal Navy, Vol. V, p. 555). But the name is a common one and there may be no connexion. P. St J. Wilson, in his The Pioneers of Port Phillip, says that Murray rose to the rank of captain in the navy, and afterwards lost his life with a ship under his command outside Port Phillip heads but the authority for this statement could not be traced.

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